Click Here To Purchase From Amazon The Shadows of Nickki

Author: Christine D. Patterson

ISBN: 978-1-4327-0833-7

A long time ago there was a young child called Nikki who was adopted in the early sixties at a very young age by seemingly caring foster parents. Nikki was placed in their care amongst many other children she later called her brothers and sisters. She had no idea of the horrors that were to happen. Author Christine Patterson enters her friend Nikki’s childhood.

Nikki always kept it shrouded in the shadows, unwilling to barely think about her past, where she suffered hideous abuse at the hands of her foster parents. Now for the first time, Nikki’s early years are revealed in this touching tale.

What is a young girl expected to do when her “mother” hurts her so much, she passes out with exhaustion? What about when her “father” sits in a chair most of the time, drinking bottle after bottle of straight vodka? When her brothers just laugh at her situation as they also hit out at her? What can a young child do when she is declared insane?

Can she not speak out about these horrors without someone putting her inside a cell? Inside this shocking novel we explore what really went on behind closed doors.

Nikki hated her foster mother so much but she didn’t dare speak out. She’d always end up shouted at and abused and when she suffered a seizure, she was told she was the devil himself. How was this supposed to be good up-bringing?

Her parents never sought to get Nikki help or any medication for these attacks. They simply ignored them. In a home like this, how was Nikki supposed to know the true meaning of love? All she knew was hatred.

When Nikki grew up and finally escaped from this nightmare, her nephew was charged with elder abuse - authorities discovered her foster mother in bed lying in her own bodily waste and urine. Was it right to charge Nikki’s nephew like this? In my opinion he didn’t deserve the charge, the foster mother who had abused Nikki for all those years had probably abused him in just the same way.

When as an adult Nikki returned to that house where she suffered so many years of abuse, she found her old clothes moulded in the bath from when she was fourteen. Was it really Nikki who was insane or her foster mother? This wasn’t the behaviour of a woman in her right state of mind. Would Nikki’s foster mother, who she will only name as “SHE”, be brought to justice?

In those days, in order to cover up the abuse which many adopted children suffered, society would label the children insane. Society had an image to maintain and so the truth was always concealed in lies and fabrications.

This novel is the account of all those years of abuse Nikki suffered. As Nikki says herself, she lost twelve years of her childhood due to the hideous cruelty she endured that forced her to grow up.

I would like to mention that Christine carefully chose the cover of this book with the help of her own children and that Nikki is very proud of it. It does reflect the life that Nikki once lived within these illustrations. The depressing and terrible time, the scared and confused little girl Nikki was is depicted so well on the cover.

A wonderful, touching yet depressing read. It is one of those books that stays with you for a long time after you finish reading. Hopefully this will open more people’s eyes to the real crimes going on in the world.

The above review was contributed by: Jessica Roberts: Jessica has been a book reviewer for a newspaper and a national women's magazine and is working on a novel. To read more of Jessica's reviews CLICK HERE 

Click Here To Purchase From Amazon The Shadows of Nickki